XP or WIn7?

[Gnashvar]

Windows 7 has worked fine for me. Some older games are less of a problem to run than winxp.

[neilencio]

I'm dualbooting Windows 7 starter and Windows XP sp3 on my netbook right now and playing lots of emulators (from nes and snes to gba, psx and n64). I won't make any recommendation between the two, but here are some of the things I noticed upon comparison:

- Speedwise, the difference is negligible, I don't even notice any difference with their speed as far as running emulators is concerned (but it is common sense that XP will be faster, since it uses less resources and runs less background stuff). Note that my netbook uses an atom n450 cpu, which is a 1.66 ghz single core that's very slow by todays' standards (benchmarks show that it performs on par with/slightly better than a 900 mhz celeron or a bottom tier p4), and an intel gma 3150 card that is virtually useless when it comes to hardware acceleration - if speed is not a factor with my slow netbook, it will be even less of an issue with your C2D macbook.

- Compatibility, I don't think there's any difference as well since windows 7 has the same compatibility mode that XP uses. It is only slightly more complicated due to UAC. Some apps require administrator access. Old DOS apps that will not run with 7 with issues pertaining to hardware compatibility also do not run with XP. I just use dosbox for those.

The only dealbreaker between the two (and the reason why I still have XP) is battery life. I can run on a fully-charged 3 cell batt for a good 2-2.45 hrs with XP. If I use 7, I only get around 2 hrs and a few minutes before the critical battery alarm goes off.

[Upsidedown Fuji]

Just like Hatta I'm on 64 bit windows 7. I also virtualize older software for antique OS's. XP had its time in the sun. It's time to move on.

[Droid party]

Just like Hatta I'm on 64 bit windows 7. I also virtualize older software for antique OS's. XP had its time in the sun. It's time to move on.

I still dual boot between xp and vista (haven't updated to 7 yet) on my gaming desktop and mostly stick with xp for games where there is no real graphical improvement to be had from dx10/11. However I am thinking it's about time to take the plunge.

[swiftzx]

I bought a new laptop last year with win7 preinstalled and personally haven't had any problems; I virtualize older software as others have mentioned as well.

[t0yrobo]

I'd go with 7 no question. The only problems you're likely to encounter is some flaky drivers, but that's entirely Apples fault, and it's nothing major.

[arion]

I just recently swithced from xp to win98. Because it occurred to me most of the games i have been playing don't need anything that xp has to offer. And game support wise there are a quite a few games that run better on win98 than xp.

Also my current hardware doesnt run the dosbox emulator that well (celeron really sucks) so a native dos support is in my favor.

And also win98 is surprisingly usable only thing i have had trouble with is getting flash video to work perfectly.

[darthmunky]

64-bit Windows 7 is the way to go, I haven't run into anything that it hasn't supported yet and it's the fastest OS I've ever used.

[RCBH928]

hmmm
people are split between xp and win7


I am guessing, that if its all the same,
i would go with XP since its older it might work better with older games
not to mention fewer resources, means faster and snappier right?

I just looked into starcraft 2, and even that will run on xp
so it means that Win7 doesn't have any real advantages

the only thing that keeps me thinking is that if I will buy a Windows copy
I rather be future proof, just incase I buy a PC I have a recent Windows copy

Mostly i will be playing games from '94-'04 ,

[hiphophead34]

I have a boot camp partition on my macbook running 7, but before a reformat I had XP. It runs great but I prefer XP, only because at the time when I installed 7 a lot of the programs that I use were not supported on 7. If you plan to use your machine for emulation I would recommend XP.